E-learning and Development: Lessons from Multi-Disciplinary Capacity Strengthening
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| IV Concluding Remarks Speeding up the development process will require increasing the productivity of various sectors such as agriculture, health and education in the developing world. However, knowledge and skills development are fundamental to increasing the productivity of human resources in these sectors. The development community has invested in various forms of capacity strengthening with limited success in the last fifty years. This is partly due to the lack of an adequate quantity of the human capital to address the emerging multidisciplinary development problems. The e-learning course described above is a result of the recognition of the extreme scarcity of interdisciplinary graduate training. A major benefit of developing such skills is to increase the ability of the local professionals to sustain their skills as well as to effectively use them in multidisciplinary problem solving. The case study described above brought out relevant lessons for the future implementation of the e-learning courses for development objectives. In summary, the case study demonstrates that an online course that increases faculty – student interaction, provides for adequate learner-learner interaction, gives adequate incentive to the participants, maintains high relevancy to real world problem solving, and respects the diversity of the participants background and ways of learning is more likely to be successful. Finally, while there is a definitive role fore- learning programs in addressing the capacity constraints in developing countries the need for increasing their effectiveness and efficiency can hardly be overemphasized. Footnotes 1. Human capital as a factor explaining the growth of the countries has received increasing recognition since the publication of Barro (1996). Several empirical models have been attempted. Yet research on appropriate and cost effective methods for developing local capacity remains an under researched area. See Fukuyama (2004) for an exposition of capacity development issues in the context of national building and the conflicting choices policymaker have to make in building local capacity for strengthening nations. The University of South Africa and the Indira Gandhi National Open University are some good examples of distance education programs in developing countries. African Virtual University is another attempt to extend learning opportunities to learners in the distance and e-learning mode. Download 224.32 Kb. Share with your friends:
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